Chasing Ghosts
by LollyLady
Summary: Summer had always been the same; She loved Zach...she really did. He kept her safe and kept her smart but he didn't keep her guessing. Her relationship with Zach didn't keep her thinking anymore, and sometimes she just longed for the reliability that Seth
1. 1 Prosaic

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the O.C characters or storylines...(although I wish I owned Adam Brody...) 

**CHASING GHOSTS**

**CHAPTER 1 - PROSAIC**

She had hated it from the word "go". It just served as a constant reminder that he was always watching; always looking over her shoulder, always _there_. For years she had prayed for stability, for balance...and now, now she found herself wishing that the pertubation, the uncertainties would return, and stop her life from being so prosaic.

She hated it so much, in fact, that she couldn't take it off.

Summer had always been the same; She loved Zach...she really did. He kept her safe and kept her smart but he didn't keep her guessing. Her relationship with Zach didn't keep her thinking anymore, and sometimes she just longed for the reliability that Seth would always mess up before her.

They had left Newport without a second glance and settled in Las Vegas, building a home, building a life, and never, not once in the nine years that they'd been away had Summer missed anything from her home town except the sea...but today, on the tenth anniversary since Marissa's death, Summer found herself wondering what would have happened if Seth had never gone away, or...god forbid it, she'd been able to forgive him.

She didn't miss talking Seth. She didn't miss the stupid, unthinking things that came out of his mouth and she didn't miss the way his hair was always too long and his clothes were always too scruffy. She missed silent Seth. She missed the awkwardness of their relationship. She hated the stability of her engagement, and suddenly realised that Zach, that Las Vegas, that her new life and that her inevitable marriage would eventually suck all the life, all the spark, and all the Summer-ness out of her.

And suddenly, for the first time in years; she was scared.

She twirled the ring on her finger and gazed into the glinting diamond. She almost saw Zach. Watching her. Keeping tabs on her. Always jealous and always paranoid that she wanted someone else. That was why they'd left Newport. Zach was scared that Summer would forgive Seth and go back to him, never knowing, as he thought it, that Summer was in love with him, that she had never loved Seth; except for that split, fleeting moment when she'd found his note...right before she hated him.

She breathed deeply, feeling herself suffocating in the familiar house and made a quick snap decision: She would go and see her father; curing the Seth orientated obsession while she was there.

She was going back to Newport. Back to memories, back to feelings, back to fuel her Seth-obsession. Zach felt like hitting something. He'd taken so much time, so much effort to make her feel good. He'd made himself prosaic just for her; to make her feel safe and stable and now he felt he was losing her.

* * *

He hadn't wanted to leave Newport. He'd wanted to stay with his family, with his friends, in that familiar, warm place that he called home. He'd left to save her from herself, to save her from her obsession. He'd left, to save Summer the pain of losing him.

And she'd never once seen it that way.

In the process of saving Summer, he'd become this bland, boring, jealous man. He had become his father without even realising it but he wasn't going to follow Summer back to Newport. If she'd ever loved him, if she'd meant the things she so frequently whispered, she'd be back; and if she fucked Cohen then he was dead.

"Zach?" She coughed through the smoke filled living room. "I though we agreed that you'd quit."

He took a drag on his cigar and ignored her, feeling the carbon monoxide whip over him. "And I thought you told me."

* * *

**pweeeeeeeeze review**


	2. 2 Coming Home

**CHAPTER 2- COMING HOME**

Zach refused point blank to wave her off from the bus station. He told her over and over the night before that he wouldn't do it, that he had things he should be doing, but she hadn't believed it; she couldn't allow herself to believe that her Zach, romantic, sparky Zach could just let her walk away without even a wave. Sure she knew she'd be back, she knew that Newport couldn't occupy her forever, but...she realised with a sigh, she was pissed that he didn't seem to give a shit.

For all he knew she was running away for good...for all he knew he'd never see her again. She thought slowly and with a heavy intake of breath, that he was doing this because she had let him down, she'd dropped the strong, secure facade of her life recently, and suddenly she was eighteen again, not a fiancee to a mllionaire, not pushing thirty and losing her looks, she was just a teenager, just the part of her that had never grown up.

So she left him at home, asleep, savouring the last moment she spent in bed beside him, never really knowing how long she'd be away. She kissed his lips lightly and ran her fingers through his hair, leaving a note on the dresser; She was going home.

* * *

She tried to sleep on the bus. She lay her head back and closed her eyes, anxiety, longing and happiness waving over her as she finally aloud herself to feel what she was really feeling. It was a release to just have a moments peace, a moment away from her hectic lifestyle and her long standing stability; for the first time since she'd left Newport, twenty eight year old Summer let her guard down.

The woman beside Summer shook slightly in the early morning chill and Summer glanced her way; the woman, feeling those big, dark eyes upon her tried to

"Liza..." Her teeth chattered, and as she moved to pull her thin blonde hair from her eyes, Summer caught a glance of a purple bruise on her left wrist.

She smiled reassuringly. "Don't run Liza...Don't let him get away with hurting you..."

Liza raised her eyebrows. "Thats so easy for you to say. Look at you, travelling slum class in your designer gear and a rock the size of Vegas weighing your hand down. What do you know about real life, away from your Gucci, your Armarni?"

"I know that running away...from anything, just makes going back...which you always do, ten times harder. I wasn't always like this! When i moved to Vegas I lived in a Motel Room for almost a year. Everything i have, the stability, the money...its just a game...real life is choices and real life is about being completely baffled by reality, but OK, i have been away from real life for a long time, i have forgotten how to talk to people who don't work for me...but all i know is that if my best friend had gone to the police 10 years ago, I'd still have been in Newport and she'd have still been alive..." Summer sobbed the last words, choking as she did so.

"So you are running back to the place you ran from?"

"Everyone always does...its inevitable."

* * *

Liza had been married to Harvey for three years. She was twenty-six, a cashier at her local 7/11 and she had just lost a baby. When she was young, she had been told over and over again how beautiful she was, how she could be a model if that was how she wanted to live her life; but she had passed up that chance to be with Harvey, her childhood sweetheart, the man she would always, _always _love wa too much.

He hadn't always been violent, He had helped her through when her father died, when she felt only like curling up into a ball and crying. He had hugged her, taken her into his arms and kissed her, made love to her when she needed it most. She couldn't dob him in. She would rather run away from it all than see him behind bars, even if it meant forgetting about the bruises, about the scars.

Summer had told her about Marissa's suicide. She had told, tears trickling down her cheeks, of how the boy that they had all thought they knew had driven her, piece by piece to throw herself off the pier. Summer had admitted, for the first time, how scared she was of going back, how insecure she felt about seeing Seth again, seeing her father again. She admitted how immature and selfish running away had been, but she had done it for Zach, and for herself, because she loved him so much.

PJ was never jailed. He still walked free due to lack of sufficiant evidence that he was involved. He cried at her funeral, lay flowers down, every moment being watched relentlessly through tear glazed eyes that were so full of hate for him. Ryan had said nothing. Staring only at the ground while Seth wrapped him into a deep hug; a brotherly hug. And Summer only wanted to get out of that familiar graveyard, that familiar town...her stupid pointless life. So after the funeral, they packed their bags - Summer and Zach - leaving notes for loved ones, explaining the circumstances.

Liza and Summer cried all the way to Newport where they couldn't bring themselves to say goodbye.


End file.
